On Ebay I noticed a seller was asking $2250 for a 1953 South Korean postal card (see Figures 1-2). I did not understand why it was so rare and want to put the question to the readers of the Korea Stamp Society website if anyone knows why it is so rare?
I knew this postal card was issued in 1953 and it was unusual as it was issued only with the Scott listed deep blue 189A affixed to the card. The Korean Postage Stamp Catalogue (KPSC) lists it as R46A. This is the only 500 won stamp with the turtle tombstone with the deep blue colour, so it is easy to recognize.
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I dont know either. But the apted-year railway postmark “Chochiwon Chungju in-between” in fig. 4 very nice. Thomas was purser on several US-transports US-Japan-Korea and produced tons of paquebot mail of ports in Japan, Korea, Ryukus, Taiwan. He even owned the original railway postmarks of japanese Taiwan late 1940s-type (well, those collected at Taipeh central depot once put out of order and replaced by chinese style) which a Taiwan postal official gave him as a gift. As a pensionist in the 1970s, his landlord throw him out the house plus putting all the contents of the garage (philatelic dreams inc. the daters) on the street. Thomas got a heart attack from this hero of free entrepreneurism act and died. The philatelic treasures inc. those Taiwan japanese period daters were trashed, I guess (gleaned from the obituary in 1970s “Japanese Philately”).
Hadn’t noticed that the card had an RPO cancellation. Is there some catalogue/listing of Korean RPO cancellations available? I think there was once such a listing in KP (have to look up which one…), but that would be quite some time ago so the images (if any) that would have come with such an article would not be very useful today on the website. Are there any other sources that you know of?
Sorry, I have no sources on TPO-postmark regulations in N/S-Korea. But I am collecting apted postmarks from the japanese period, the usage of which in ROK (South) petered out around 1962.
Thanks for that valuable information, Florian. Robert
I have written a message directly to the seller and asking about it. Hope he will reply. Used item is rarer than mint ones, but should not be so expensive.
I get the reply from seller and his answer is quite simple: he believes that very few real used samples exist. If any of our readers have other samples, please show. Thank you.